The Hideaway

She chuckled and smoothed her hand down the length of the table.

“You won’t find another table filled with as much love as this one. Look here—see this key engraved into the wood? He cuts the key into every piece he makes. He started doing it fifty years ago when he fell in love with a girl named Maggie. He said she held the key to his heart.”

“Well, you don’t hear that every day,” the woman said. “What happened to them? Tell me they married and lived a happy life together.”

“They didn’t marry,” I said, “but they should have. I’m pretty sure she loved him until she died earlier this year, and he still very much loves her.”

“Sounds like you know this woodworker well.”

From across the room, Crawford caught my eye and winked.

I nodded. “I do. He’s my grandfather.”

That night, long after the last customers found their way out of the shop, most with shopping bags rustling around their knees, Crawford and I relaxed in the rocking chairs on the back porch of The Hideaway. The Crowes were getting ready for a dinner I’d booked for them at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, and the Melmans were at the Outrigger. Another group of guests wasn’t arriving until the next afternoon, so I had the evening off.

I sipped my wine and settled farther into my chair. My legs rested on a blanket in Crawford’s lap and he gently squeezed my bare feet.

A scuffle in the house behind us made us both look up to the open doorway. Bert stood with one hand on the door frame, the other caught in Dot’s firm grasp.

“Bert, give them some privacy,” she scolded, then turned to me. “I’m sorry. I told him you two wouldn’t be interested in his silly games, but he’s being very pigheaded.”

Bert shook his hand free from Dot’s and walked out on the porch. “I picked up this new game at Grimmerson’s today. George said it’s popular with the young people.”

“It’s Pictionary,” Dot said, exasperated.

Crawford grinned. “What do you say?” he whispered.

“I can draw a mean crawfish,” I whispered back.

“Let’s do it,” he said. “Here’s to another night in paradise.”

46

MAGS

MARCH, NINE MONTHS EARLIER

I often went back to the cove. I went on days when I couldn’t bear the loneliness of missing William—or maybe I just pined for that short, sweet time in my life when he would hold me, touch me, make me feel as alive as a power line, shooting sparks and electricity out into the universe. I’d sit along the edge of the water and imagine what it would have been like if things had turned out differently. If Robert hadn’t had that first episode and landed himself in the hospital, or if I’d never cashed that check, leading Daddy to The Hideaway, William and I might have still been together. We would have spent every evening out on our porch overlooking the water, dumbstruck at our love and how lucky we were to have found each other.

Or maybe that’s not true at all. Maybe we would have fizzled as quickly as we began. A bright burst of fire at the beginning and another, dimmer burst at the end, like a firework that never quite made it off the ground. We could have hurt each other a thousand ways, both of us eventually needing more and offering less than we had to give. I would have always wondered if he stayed with me out of a sense of duty, because of Jenny, while he’d worry that I’d only stayed with him to defy Robert and my parents.

I could dream all day long, but at its core, the truth of my life is that I am a lucky woman. I’ve known real love and true beauty, two things not given to every person. Without Robert, I never would have found my way to The Hideaway or William, and without William, I wouldn’t have known the delight of both Jenny and Sara.

While I’m thankful for both of these men in my life, I’m more thankful for the woman they showed me I could be on my own. Not to mention the people they brought into my life. The Hideaway was always full of friends and lovers, mothers and daughters, secret keepers and secret spillers, straight talkers and soft shoulders. We had hurt and we had joy, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Things could have turned out better or worse, but I don’t dwell on any of that. I have a tarnished old house to live in, a garden to keep my hands dirty, and sunsets to watch. Sitting here on my old cedar bench, my toes dug deep in the earth, herons swooping low over the water, and the sun an orange ball of fire slipping below the horizon, I figure I’ve had it just about as good as it gets.